He was a man of about thirty, attired in a seedy suit of clothes, a dilapidated stove-pipe hat, and wore a brown beard and mustache.
“Oh!” he roared, struggling to break away from Frank. “Don’t touch me. I’m crazy! Look out! I bite! Ha! ha! See the demons. The air is full of them! Back, you imps, back I say!”
He put up his fists and began to punch wind.
A cynical smile crossed Frank’s face.
“So you’re looney, eh?” he asked, sarcastically.
“Completely off my base!” asserted the man, confidentially.
“You lie! You are simply pretending to be a crank in order to avoid punishment.”
“That’s a daisy game!” laughed the detective.
“Oh, but you’re mistaken!” said the man, in injured tones. “I just escaped from the asylum. I’m a dead bug; on the level, I am.”
“What induced you to enter my shop and stow yourself away aboard of this airship—a desire to navigate the clouds?”